


What could have been

by indoissetep



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: M/M, and turn your head just right, but you kinda have to squint, fn-squad relationships, some mentions of death, the first order are bastards, this is fn-2187/slip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-09
Updated: 2016-05-09
Packaged: 2018-06-07 07:06:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6792433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indoissetep/pseuds/indoissetep
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A rare idle moment for FN-2187′s fireteam leads to a conversation about what life could’ve been like for them. Things do not end too well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What could have been

**Author's Note:**

> I can't stop writing about the FN-boys because I love them and I love pain. And also because I am FN-2187/Slip trash.

The topic had crept up on them, like these things do over long idle stretches. Not that any of these boys had ever had much experience with idleness.

“I’d go back to my homeworld,”  FN-2187 was the last of the four to name his choice.

“Oh, c’mon!” Nines.

“You have zero imagination, Eight-seven!” Zeroes.

“Why?” Slip.

“There’s no other place in the Galaxy I’d rather see. I mean, I do want to see Felucia, Coruscant, Naboo and everywhere else, but if I had to pick just one place...”

“Well, based on what I can see right here,” said Nines, gesturing vaguely at all of FN-2187, “your homeworld is probably some miserable little rock covered in nothing but boring, unimaginative jerks.”

“Ass!” FN-2187 picked up his pillow and flung it across the room at Nines in mock anger. A badly miscalculated move, as it left Eight-seven pillowless, and also meant that Nines now had two pillows to lean back against, a satisfied grin spreading over his face.

“It’s true, though,” Zeroes’s voice brought Eight-seven’s attention back to the discussion, “If it weren’t for the First Order we’d all be on some lousy backwater planet, working as freaking moisture farmers or nerf herders or whatever.”

“What are you saying?” FN-2187 was suddenly dreading to continue this conversation.

“I’m saying that the First Order has given us everything we have. They saved us all from meaningless, miserable lives,” Zeroes finished with a shrug.

“What if I wanted a life like that?”

Silence and exchanged glances.

“I’m serious. Don’t you ever think about the lives we could’ve had? What if I wanted to be a farmer or a nerf herder? What if I wanted to be someone normal, with a home and a family...”

_And a name._

“Ugh, not this bantha shit _again_ ,” Nines threw his hands up in frustration, “Why do you even care about our families? We don’t even remember them.”

But they did. All of them. Not much, just unfocused images, feelings, sounds. A couple of words in a strange language. A few notes in a song.

They all remembered something. But they had all learned years ago to keep quiet about it.

“They’re probably dead, Eight-seven. You know what things are like out there,” Slip’s voice was gentle, cautious.

Yes, they’d all seen the holo-reports on the deplorable state of the Galaxy under New Republic rule. Viewing was, after all, mandatory.

“Slip’s right,” a rare statement, coming from Zeroes, “They probably died long ago, because of famine or some weird pandemic. Or murdered by slavers or pirates.”

“Or by the Resistance,” completed Nines.

“Or by the First Order,” FN-2187 spat back.

The temperature in their room seemed to drop to match the frozen world outside.

Zeroes and Slip eyed him warily, as if they did not know him anymore and were unsure of what he might do next. The look in Nines’s eyes, however, was of open hostility.

FN-2187 met all of their gazes in turn, and pressed on.

“Do you think our families just stood there and watched as we were taken away? Do you think they did nothing, didn’t fight back? You all know the First Order murdered them.”

The silence that stretched among them was like an ice age. It finally came down to Nines to end it.

“What the fuck is wrong with you? It’s bad enough that you’d even think like this, but to actually say it out loud?” he grabbed FN-2187’s pillow and flung it back against its owner, but this had none of the playfulness of Eight-seven’s earlier throw, “You need to learn to shut the fuck up before you get us all sent into reconditioning. You for spouting this subversive shit, and the rest of us for being exposed to it.”

It felt like there was a tight fist around FN-2187’s throat. But, even if he could speak, he didn’t know what to say.

No matter. Nines was already on his feet and moving, throwing a “Let’s go” over his shoulder  with all the confidence of someone who doesn’t have to look back to make sure others are following.

And, sure enough, Zeroes immediately moved towards the door as well, sparing FN-2187 only a quick, terse look as he passed. Then it was Slip who followed, not even glancing in Eight-seven’s direction. But, instead of walking out the door, he closed it, and came back to stand beside FN-2187’s bunk.

“They’re right, you know?” still gentle, still cautious.

FN-2187 could not force himself to look up at the other boy. He stared at a point on the opposite wall instead.

“You can’t keep saying these things, Eight-seven. Someone’s gonna end up hearing. Phasma...” FN-2187 could see him glancing at the door, like it might fly open at any second to admit the aforementioned captain, “You know what she’ll do to you.”

FN-2187 knew all too well.

“You’ve had these thoughts, too, Slip,” he finally forced himself to look up at the other cadet.

Slip’s shoulders seemed to sag under a great weight, and then it was the boy’s own weight that was dropping onto the edge of Eight-seven’s bunk.

“When we were younger, yeah. But that was a long time ago,” Slip’s hand sought out Eight-seven’s own, instinctively, “We’ll be real troopers soon, Eight-seven. We can’t go on dreaming about this life we never had. That we’re never gonna have.”

Their hands fit together easily, as warm and comfortable as ever.

“Plus...” Slip went on, “You do have a family. Zeroes, Nines. Me. _We_ are your family.”

“I don’t think the Captain would approve of you calling us that either,” he couldn’t have kept the bitterness out of his voice if he had tried.

He’d clearly said the wrong thing, because now Slip’s hand was gone from his and the boy was standing up. But his hand returned, now to touch the side of Eight-seven’s face and force him to look up.

“I don’t care. It’s the truth.”

Leaning down, he pressed a kiss to FN-2187’s forehead, fingers and lips lingering for longer than was strictly necessary, before he turned and walked away.

 

**Author's Note:**

> It looks like I have a [tumblr](http://indoissetep.tumblr.com/)


End file.
